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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Update #129 on Kevin - ICU

Tonight, in preparation for the upcoming winter storm/blizzard, we decided that I would stay the night with Kevin at the hospital. That way, in case everyone is snowed in, someone is with him in ICU. They are all very nice here and are allowing me to stay on a couch/bed that is in Kevin's room.

Kevin's fever is still gone, two days in a row. His heartrate has become much more normal , right now it is 79 and he's awake (yeah it's 2 AM - he's still a night owl). The medical staff have been weaning Kevin off the dopamine, which is to combat low blood pressure. They have lowered the dopamine from 15 mg yesterday (Monday) to 3 mg by this evening (Tuesday). His blood pressure is remaining steady and keeping up with the changes in medicine.

Also, this evening they have started weaning him off the ventilator. All evening he has been initiating all his breathing and the machine only helps if he doesn't take a deep enough breath. Because of the pneumonia, his breathing has been more shallow. Yet, even with the changes in the ventilator, his lungs are keeping up, for 9 hours so far. After his most recent breathing treatment, he needed a break so they switched back his vent settings with a plan to start the weaning again in the morning.

His nurse tonight, told me that every nurse that comes in to help her do something with Kevin cannot believe that he has been at home with home health care. They have all said the family is doing an excellent job caring for him. They can see it in his skin and the lack of any pressure sores whatsoever. And this morning when the physical therapist came and did and evaluation on him, she said that he has excellent range. They are now sending techs to come and do range of motion even while in ICU.

Apparently, at first Kevin's kidneys were not functioning good after we arrived here. Now Kevin's kidneys are functioning well, so they started giving him food through his peg tube. We spoke with the doctor about the possibility of changing his peg tube while we were here at the hospital, since his is approximately one year and five months old. Once things get stabilized they will look into that.

He still has blood in his urine that is unaccounted for, however it is lessening. They would still like to know where it is coming from. There is a plan to do an ultra sound to see if he has any kidney stones sometime soon.

Tomorrow they plan to restart provigil (at home we use nuvigil), which is an alert medication. However, throughout the day today it has been more alert than yesterday. And as normal, wide awake about an hour ago in the night.

If you would like to send cards you can get the address at St John's website. However, you can also do this digitally by clicking the following link http://www.sjmc.org/general.asp?id=322&siteuse=11 and filling out the form. Kevin is in room 809. We have a wall that we can tape any cards up, cheering Kevin up in the process.

More later, but for now, thanks for reading and praying,
Matt, Angie and family
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About Kevin

This is from Kevin's own words off a profile online: "My name is Kevin and I shoot striaght. I like to joke around though and enjoy meeting people. My children are the highlights of my life next to GOD. My Mom, Dad, brothers, sister-in -law, and their children are very close to me also. I have many special friends and extended family and they know who they are. I love my job at AMERICAN AIRLINES. I'm a EXECUTIVE BOARD OFFICER for the TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION LOCAL 514. I love softball, hunting, and being involed in the community. I like to help people. I think this is what God intended us to do. I have the honor of setting on several boards. Vision 2025, Redcross Chapter, Redcross Blood Services and recently I've been asked on the INCOG federal reserve Board. I know every day matters so live it like you should."